I was not only on the original DTB, but was at the party where it was conceived. The team was going to play at Fools’ West, and right away I knew that I was going to play on it. In his classic work "The Souls of Black Folk," W.E.B. DuBois speaks of a double consciousness that Black people in this country have, a viewing of the world through two sets of eyes: their own as African-Americans, and the eyes of the white world which they navigate.
I have often thought of this concept when contemplating what it’s like to be a person of color who plays Ultimate. I played primarily in the 90s, when people of color in the sport were scarcer then they are today. To be the only African-American on the field at any given point in time was not a rarity. That was an isolating and alienating experience. I loved the sport, and I loved all the teammates with whom I played (loved, not liked), but I also knew that there was a significant aspect of my being that the vast majority would never fully understand.
The trade was simple: play a sport I love in exchange for spending most of my free time in a predominantly (almost completely) white space. Playing with DTB was an opportunity to not have to make that trade, so I jumped at it. To be surrounded by people who had shared the experience of feeling marginalized while playing the sport they loved was a balm like I had never experienced. It’s not insignificant that the very first DTB played at April Fools’ West. For a number of years an exclusively Jewish team called Matzo Balls had been playing at the tournament. A couple of years prior, an all-Catholic team had played at the same tournament. I have never heard of anyone criticizing either of those teams.
So when I hear that members of a supposedly enlightened community have an issue with the existence of DTB, I am puzzled as to why that is. I have a theory. The very existence of DTB is a challenge to the notion of color-blindness, to the idea that race no longer matters in this country. And many people are uncomfortable with such a challenge, because that challenge means they have to confront their own privilege.
For those who might say DTB is some sort of overreaction or is unnecessary, I would encourage them to devote their lives to an activity that requires them to be one of a sprinkling of white people in a sea of people of color; to spend week in and week out playing, practicing, and training in that world; to go to parties where there are very few (if any) other white people; and to do this for several years—over a decade for many, perhaps even two.
I used to play recreational tournaments like Potlatch or Lei Out exclusively with teams that had the potential to win the event, like playing with Team USA in preparation for Worlds. Then during subsequent years, I’d just play with a reunion version of that team. For me, joining a team that could win it all felt like a fleeting privilege that trumped playing with another team for any other reason. I was upfront and clear about how my competitive nature conflicted with my desire to be a part of a Downtown Brown, and through my (admittedly myopic) lens, I felt like DTB was great at bringing people of color together, but wasn’t really concerned with competing to win.
Many of the top players playing Club or other tourneys were POC, but were dispersed across different teams. Unfortunately, I was part of a pattern that interfered with DTB's ability to develop a competitive team; I joined the number of elite players who came and played for a game or two to show our support, only to return to our other respective teams. DTB’s open arms policy had an unintended effect: there wasn’t the consistency and critical mass of elite players necessary to build the cohesiveness that develops over the course of a weekend tournament.
But what if we could get those elite players together on the team for the entire tourney? One year, the team’s leaders decided to take that initiative and hand-selected a roster of players for the purpose of doing as well as they could. If DTB could showcase their talent on the biggest stage, the team would gain more visibility and really show the Ultimate community what it was all about. I was in.
I’d never realized how much of my myself I had allowed to be dormant being content to assimilate within the Ultimate community. Playing with DTB opened my eyes to the parts of me that I had not allowed to be free. I witnessed a confluence of likeness. I experienced a deep connection with teammates based on similar experiences, comparable backgrounds, and, in general, a shared perspective of the world. Once I was moved to tears in a huddle speech and really felt I was playing with uninhibited passion and vulnerability. This connection created a powerful bond and feeling of family I will never forget.
We may have lost to Team USA in Semis at Potlatch that year, but DTB made a name for itself and collectively we had one of the most meaningful and memorable experiences I've ever had playing our sport.
I had the fortune to play on many memorable teams during my ultimate career, some of which produced many lifelong friends as well as great sport moments. The most meaningful team that I ever played with is DTB.
When DTB was first realized, we had no idea how the greater Ultimate community would react or how recruiting for the team would be received. We did think it was a great opportunity for those of us who, at the time, would often be one of only a few non-white players on our club or college teams. The timing was good and our sport seemed to be the right place for a team like this to be formed. The circle became a way to share our experiences and celebrate being a person of color in America.
What I learned in that circle is there are many different and varying stories but often with common themes. There have been so many topics over the years, all with history and relevance—race and politics, food, family or personal immigration experiences, and each of our own perceived identities in society. The team itself has become a forum of expression to the greater community, with the circle being the sounding board for the ideas.
I am so grateful to have been part of this team and to know how much it means to those who played on it. For me, the dialogue continues today with many of the same players who helped form this team. It is interesting how over 20 years later these forums are as necessary as ever.
Downtown Brown brought me into the fold for Potlatch 2006, in I think one of the first coed iterations of the team. For me, Ultimate had been about playing, training, team-ing, partying, competing, but after getting to know Michael Namkung and Jody Dozono sometime in 2005, I started to understand that there could be more meaningful levels. Friends and allies in Ultimate could co-create space to discuss how normalization of things like whiteness and heterosexuality impacts us, on the personal and cultural levels, in ultimate and beyond.
I was nervous and excited to join DTB. I’ve referred to the circle as a magical place, and if you haven’t experienced it, that may not make sense at all. I entered the circle for the first time feeling somewhat uncertain, but Frankus started things off with some history and some reassuring words about inclusivity and family ... and pretty soon it was clear how similar some of my personal experiences and feelings were to those of each person sharing. The circle often brings laughter, heartwarming stories, rage-producing stories, connection, tears, and hugs, and suddenly you realize that you and your brown sisters and brothers—of the past, present, and future—are family forever.
Even having not played on DTB for many years at this point, part of me is with DTB Nation always.
Unity. Knowledge. Justice. Together. Too brown, too strong.
My mother is Blue Blood White and my father natural born Puerto Rican. I grew up with a conscious realization of my Latin heritage, but with my father and the culture not at all present I was never able to understand or embrace my ethnicity. Honestly, I was embarrassed about being Hispanic for most of my younger years and thus had lost what little of the culture I had learned altogether before high school.
The 70s and 80s East Coast were quite segregated culturally where I lived. In predominantly white Wellesley, Mass., I was considered brown and called “wetback”, “spic” and “Chico” at any given time. Later, my family moved to predominantly Black South Philadelphia. There, I was considered White and called Honky, Cracker, white boy,” etc.
I discovered Ultimate in high school. Of course, it was a white-dominated sport, but my core of friends were playing and I loved the game. Because I excelled, I went on to play in college and ultimately at club level. I was honored to be invited to play for the original Affirmative Action (now Downtown Brown) team in 1997.
DTB allowed me to transcend the sport that I had loved and cherished for so many years as a vehicle to understand my Latin culture I had lost as a child. We challenged ourselves in the circle to take the time to reach out to our families and learn more about our lost ancestries. Talk to your grandparents, take Spanish lessons, visit the country your parents are from, etc. We would bring our experiences of what we had learned back into the larger group and share our experiences.
I will cherish those intense moments when DTB sat in a circle and opened our hearts, minds, and history with each other, all while competing together as a team in a beautiful sport.
For 10 years I've had the privilege to be at the helm of navigating Downtown Brown through a pretty remarkable time in the history of Ultimate. While DTB started at a time when the number of players of color were almost anomalies, the sport has obviously grown and welcomed more and more minority players into its ranks. But, as progress is rarely, if ever, linear, ensuring that DTB continued to exist became my priority.
There are definitely moments on the field and in the circle when this undertaking fills my soul, but most of the time it has felt imperfect and difficult. How does one justify the need for a team like DTB? How does one react to those who say it makes them uncomfortable? Why put forth so much effort and work when people just want to play a game? What is this all for?
I believe the answer lies in recognizing that it is becoming far too rare to experience genuine connection and kinship. So often we interact superficially and hastily such that we almost forget we need it. This is why I think being a part of DTB resonates so deeply: it's like coming up for air.
For me, DTB is understanding that acceptance and inclusivity comes from acknowledging ALL the parts of ourselves, not just the parts that look or act the same, or are easy to digest. That acceptance does not require assimilation—it requires receiving with compassion and celebrating what makes us unique.
Such spaces need to be more common. That is why this past season I asked: WHO WE BE? It is a question that challenges us not to simply judge and dismiss, but listen and relate. More importantly, however, it is a reflection of an undeniable truth: the hard subjects of life (including how we treat each other, speak to each other, and interact with each other) are not "fixed" or "solved" through a single interaction or acknowledgement; on the contrary, they are an ongoing struggle that requires work and reflection, and above all else, empathy.
To the extent that Downtown Brown can be the mirror or reminder of such truth, I believe the team’s existence is and will continue to be a positive force that I hope endures in this community and beyond.
It’s been almost twenty years since I last played any sort of club level ultimate (where does the time go?!), but I look back on my Ultimate career—from the 1991 to 2000 and admittedly mediocre at best—with a lot of fondness. Throughout that time, I played with and against a lot of people who, to this day, remain some of my closest friends and members of my community. But the team that holds a special place in my heart is of course, Downtown Brown.
I think we all had this shared experience of playing a sport we loved, but feeling like there just weren’t a whole lot of people who looked like us on the field. Obviously, things have changed in the last 20 years, but back in the 90s, there just weren’t a whole lot of us playing. I can’t tell you the number of times I looked across the field and felt like, “Ok, so I’m matching up against the only other Asian dude, or other non-white player.” Well, with Downtown Brown (still one of the best names for any team) the people whom I’d previously matched up against, were my teammates. And it felt good to play together.
Sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing, until you get it. In this case, it was playing with friends who somehow got you because they understood the experience of also being a minority in dominant White culture. We were “woke” even back then. We had DJ Dave on the sidelines with the tunes and we had Gata leading us on cheers decrying the Man, but most of all, we were a great team who could compete.
But the thing I remember with the most fondness is the post tournament circle. This is where we all sat and shared our stories about growing up, our backgrounds and what it meant to play on DTB. This was real talk. What started out as a fun team became something more: a chance to talk about what it means to be a person of color and to navigate identity in our society. It was deep.
In the nearly 20 years I’ve been out of the game, there are way more players of color and undoubtedly the consciousness of race, ethnicity and identity has grown with the younger generations, but I hope there’s always a place for Downtown Brown. Fist Up!
I grew up in Vancouver, Canada, feeling lost and out of place, struggling to find myself in the convolution of strict cultural tradition, immigrant expectations, and first generation Canadian aspirations and rebelliousness. Spliced into that was an unhappy and abusive family situation. and so sports was an escape from real life.
I stumbled onto Ultimate at the end of high school in 1992 and the Vancouver Ultimate community embraced me and the rest of the brash punk kids into their world. I started playing with the women’s team, GOO, in 1994, and that afforded me not only the opportunity to get on a plane for the first time, but exposure to the warmth of camaraderie, support, and openness that I had never known. When I moved out east for grad school, the Godiva women immediately took me in as one of their own. I thought I had divested myself of my past, become liberated from my upbringing, and that I was doing great.
But moving to the other side of the continent and running away from my previous life, not surprisingly, only doomed me to reprise my problems. I was invited to play with the first co-ed DTB team at Potlatch in 2006. In truth, I didn’t know much about DTB and playing with a bunch of other Brown people didn’t resonate with me. I was elated to play with a bunch of superstar players that I had either looked up to and/or competed against for years. It wasn’t until The Circle on Saturday night did I realize the power and community of DTB. I’m not sure if I actually said anything in my first circle. I do acutely remember the rawness, the frankness, and the vulnerability demonstrated by the people on the team as they recounted their own struggles of growing up Brown in a very white world; dealing with abuse; figuring out what they wanted in life despite familial obligations and cultural expectations. I remember bawling until my eyes couldn’t shed any more tears, my nose completely snotted up, and my heart both clenched tight and yet full of this funny strange feeling ... of love and being loved.
When I first heard about Downtown Brown, it was through the grapevine from my sister Hana, Frank Nam, Lili Gu, and maybe others. It sounded like a distant illusion: a team that prioritized what other teams don't. It invited folks with a totally new set of criteria, not based on skill, social connections, the ability to pay for it, or even the commitment of playing through a whole weekend. Instead, DTB was about the shared experience and identity of being a black or brown person in the frisbee world.
As a result, playing with DTB for the first time—just a game or two at Potlatch—felt new and different. I was surprised at the openness and excitement every person had about playing together, as well as about thinking and talking about our experiences and the role of racism in frisbee. It was an open and inviting space, ready to be what folks needed or wanted, and most of all, ready to do things differently.
It's easy for me to forget what it means to assimilate, to lose touch with those parts of me I've tried to shrink in order to fit in. Playing with DTB, I’m reminded of the beauty of bringing my whole self to this sport; when I step onto the field, I feel powerful not just as an athlete, but as an Asian-American athlete. I see joy and solidarity in the black and brown faces of my teammates in the huddle, each bringing their whole selves and our shared experiences. Frisbee becomes about more than just winning and competing—it’s about remembering that our sport isn't distinct from the problems of the rest of the world.
If we can't fight racism in places where we have fun, how can we fight it where it's hard?